Blade systems consist of multiple server blades that share non-core computing components, such as those directed to power, cooling, networking, etc. Each server blade, also referred to as a blade, is a computer server that only includes essential computing components, such as processor(s), memory, storage, etc. Thus, blade systems are more space and cost efficient than standard rack systems.
Within a blade system, each server blade may connect to a network through an interface between a network interface component of the server blade, such as a network interface card (NIC), and a shared Ethernet switch of the blade system. The Ethernet switch establishes a link to the network. Due to cross-talk and/or cross-coupling issues (e.g., unwanted interferences from nearby transmissions, false detections at transmission origins, etc.), a keep-alive protocol is usually implemented between a server blade and an entity on the network to determine whether the link to the network is still active. Using a keep-alive protocol, however, requires the use of additional media access control (MAC) addresses as well as extra central processing unit (CPU) cycles.